U.s. Sets Trap For Key Suspect In Drug Murder

April 6, 1988|The New York Times

WASHINGTON -- Springing a trap at dawn in Honduras, the United States on Tuesday arranged the capture and arrest of a key suspect in the murder of an American drug agent in Mexico, law enforcement officials said Tuesday night.

The suspect, Juan Ramon Matta Ballesteros, is viewed by law enforcement officials as a leading international drug trafficker with close links to the Medellin drug organization in Colombia.

``This is one of the most significant fugitive arrests in recent years,`` Stephen Boyle of the U.S. Marshals Service said.

A reputed multibillionaire, Matta had escaped from an American prison and bribed his way out of a Colombian jail. He has been living in Honduras, which has no extradition treaty with the United States.

But his freedom abruptly came to an end Tuesday morning in front of his house in Teguicigalpa, the Honduran capital, when he was seized by Honduran military officers. The officers later forced him onto a plane bound for the Dominican Republic.

The Marshals Service announced Tuesday night that the Dominican Republic immediately put Matta in the custody of marshals and that he was put on a commercial flight for New York. Officials said he would be formally arrested when the plane entered American airspace.

American officials have been actively seeking Matta for years. Those efforts intensified with the killing in 1985 of Enrique Camarena Salazar, a Drug Enforcement Administration agent in Mexico. John C. Lawn, the head of the DEA, said in 1985 that Matta was one of the four top suspects in the case.

Matta has not been indicted in the murder of Cararena, but American officials believe that he was one of those who ordered the murder in response to damaging seizures and arrests put together by the American agent.